Becoming the Maniac
by Koomori
Summary: a regular angsty teen finds he has become a plug... which of course does wonders for his angst... I do not own Nny, Devi, Squee, the Doughbois, etc. nor do I own Death, delirium, destiny or despair(it's kinda a x-over of JtHM and Sandman, but not really.


My friend was safe, now, she'd been kidnapped. I found her right before the kidnapper was going to kill her. I had fought off the kidnapper, and got her to safety. Now, I was stalking around my house, throwing things, pissed as hell that someone had kidnapped, tortured, raped and almost killed my friend. The girl I love. I punched the wall, and felt my hand go through up to the elbow.

"What the Hell?" I said aloud, and started to tear away the plaster and sheetrock. I stood before a darkened stairway, I reached in, groping for a light switch. Finding one I flipped it on, and saw a door at the bottom of the stairs. I stalked down the stairway, hesitating at the door.

_ /Open it…/ _a voice in my head whispered.

_/ It's your fate…/ _anther voice said.

I opened the door, and saw a wood paneled room, and a large fiendish machine with restraints for the arms and legs with a surgical table next to it. Upon the table was a pair of keen-edged daggers, with smiley faces on the pommels. I reached towards the daggers, feeling the voices press on my mind, urging me to pick them up. My hand stretched towards the knives, while slowly a plan crept into my mind (A/N: for some reason, I keep imagining the grinch as he slowly grins…cheapens it, I know, but oh well), Vengeance. Vengeance upon the rapist, the kidnapper, the would-be murderer of my friend. I stuck the knives in my belt, and ran up the stairs. My friend was at the door, and I almost ran into her, as I eagerly ran through the door.

"I'll be back in a bit!" I called back to her,

"Wait! I-" was all I heard her say as I ran off into the night.

A few minutes later, I stood at the door of the rapist. I tried the handle, locked. I delivered a swift kick to the wood next to the metal plate of the door knob, the door flew open, banging against the wall next to it, and startling the rapist as he watched TV.

"You!" I shouted, pointing at him, I flew at him, and knocked him out with a single punch. I dragged him back to my house, using cover of night to not be caught. I arrived back at my house and found my friend sitting on the sofa in the living room.

"What the Hell's going on?" my friend shouted.

"Give me a hand with this guy will ya?" I asked, not explaining a thing, My friend merely followed me as I dragged the offender down my newly discovered stairs. I restrained the hands and legs in the machine I'd found.

_ /Well, what are you waiting for? Kill Him! Paint the walls with his blood!/ _ a voice from before said…

_/ This isn't how the law works… turn him in, and Kill YOURSELF! What you plan to do is horrible! You don't deserve to live! Kill yourself! /_

"Shut up! Shut up, Shut up, Shut up! I don't care to be involved in the personal desires of the doughboys!" I yelled, awakening the rapist and startling my friend.

"What's going on?" my friend asked, then, concerned, addressed me by name…

"This piece of shit must pay for what he did to you. He will be tortured, just as he tortured you!"

"You're not going to get away with this! You little self righteous shit! You're just another one like me!" the rapist yelled…

Stuffing a rag in the man's mouth, I replied, "You dare say I'm as bad as you…? You're a rapist, the most abhorred of all criminals."

"MM. HM-MM!"

"You'll have to speak up, I can't underst-"

"Uh, take the rag out of his mouth,"

"Oh, right…" I took the rag out of his mouth(A/N: I love that bit….)

"Who are you, freak?"

"You may call me Johnny." I said in a sweeping bow…

"Shit! You've lost it!" My friend accused.

"No. I haven't…" I said, suddenly dour…

"Some one's gotta come eventually! HELP! HELP!" The man started yelling…

I stuffed the rag back into his mouth and, sliding a tray under the hanging form, I flipped a switch beside the machine. A loud whirring sound filled the small room, a blade emerged from the wall and pierced the back of the rapist, His blood slowly draining out into the tray below him…(a/n: okay… this is getting too long, I'm going to skip ahead, the guy's still alive after the machine is done, so 'Johnny' does the whole 'to the pain' bit from Princess Bride, then guts the guy from groin to throat and from armpit to armpit…) He slumped over, finally dead, and, sliding the metal tray filled with blood out from under his lifeless frame, I began to unlock his shackles, I put one arm around his body, and carried the limp, lighter corpse out to the front yard, and picked up a shovel. I began digging the shallow grave, 2, 3, 4, feet deep, two feet too shallow to be a proper grave, but I didn't care. I slid the corpse into the into the grave, prodding it with the shovel to make it lay flat, and began filling it in. I heard a small squeek behind me. I turned and smile-glowered at a small child on a big-wheel, causing him to ride away as fast as possible, dropping his bear and screaming. I took note of where the child lived, and resolved to return it later. I walked back into my house, stopping along the way to the basement to write 'To Do: Make sign for front yard.'

"Hey, 'Johnny' come look at this!" My friend called from downstairs. I set down the pen and went downstairs. "What's with the teddy?" my friend asked, pointing out that I still held the child's bear.

"Guess I've got my own 'Squee'." I said, tossing the bear upstairs.

"Take a look at this." My friend said, drawing my attention to the ground. "Your boots prints made a cross shape."

I looked at the prints, which looked like my foot prints had been shaped into a perfect cross shape, but there was no sign of blood having been wiped or dabbed away. "Coincidence, Happenstance, it doesn't mean anything…" I said looking away.

"Johnny! We're not just talking about a vague cross shape here! This is an actual sign! It's a perfect cross, it must mean something, why don't you see it!" My friend shouted.

"Why?! Because of what it means if it is a sign! It means I go to Hell!"

"Well you chose to do what you did, it's your own damn fault!"

"No I didn't, there's a driving force here! You think I chose this house because of this room?! You think the real estate agent said 'Oh and it's got a JTHM-style torture room!' and I said 'I'll take it!'?" I shouted back. "You think I want to be a plug?! A flusher?! No! I don't! It's a sad, lonely, pathetic purpose!"

"Johnny never dies and he never gets caught! What are you so bent out of shape for!? You get to live forever!"

"That's my point! I won't die! I don't want to live forever!" I shouted, tears welling up in my eyes, "Live young for ever , sure, great, everyone's dream…But not mine! See my friends all die and not me?! Have to live for ever and lose my friends one by one?!" I said, my knees buckling and my shoulders slumping and my hands curling into claws, a tear falling from my eye. "To meet death so many times, and never be taken myself?! Do you think I want that?!" I shouted at my friend, the emotional floodgate open and a small, almost nonexistent part of my mind almost wishing I still had that teddy bear…my inner child, my cold, lonely, long-gone inner-child. "And on top of that, as if personal grief and despair weren't enough, I've got a wall I've got to keep coated in fresh blood, two psychotic Styrofoam sculptures that have their owndesires and I can't seem to have a normal day!" I shouted, "If I'm Johnny, the omen is the final part! Johnnen's universe is Christian! This is the sign that means heaven exists, Hell exists, and I'm nothing but their pawn! I don't want to live that life!" I shouted, tears flowing, "I don't want to live alone!" I sobbed, " I don't want the only people I associate with to be people I have to kill!" my friend crossed the room, and kneeling in front of me, embraced me,

"Shhhhh.., You're right, if you're Johnny, you don't have a choice, If you're Nny, you were meant for this."

"You're right," said a new voice "He was meant for this, It wasn't his choice," A 20-something gothette stood in the doorway, skin paler than any amount of darkness and make can grant, and in true black garments, black that was all-consuming, black that was surface-less, A large silver ankh hung from her neck.

"Death?" I asked, looking up from my friend's shoulder, her slight form was still wrapped around me, her straw-blond haired head still comfortingly nestled against my neck, and her burgundy "corset"-top soaked at the shoulder.

"Yes, and, sorry, I'm not here for you, Johnny really doesn't die, not for awhile at least" she said, "and even then, he comes back."

"I didn't think you were, the guy died over there," I said, gesturing towards the machine, "His spirit should be around here somewhere, I already buried him."

"Yeah, I already took him, I'm here to talk to you,"

"Why you? Why not Despair, Delirium or Destiny?"

"We figured I'm the one you'll be working with most, plus Despair doesn't help people out of depression, you'll meet Delirium later, but you're not delirious yet, and Destiny thinks this is interfering, which he doesn't do." Death explained.

"So why are you here? I mean what do you need to talk to him about? My friend asked.

"I think she's just here to clear some things up."

"Yeah, so, any questions?"

"So, I'm Johnny?" I asked

"Yeah, and Squee and Devi exist also since they're integral to your purpose."

"So that kid that saw me bury the rapist was Squee?"

"Yes"

"And what about Devi?" my friend asked, "Who's Devi for him?"

"Yes, she wil exist, but I can't say who she is, that's for you to find out when she exists." Death said, "Any more questions?"

"Not really, Not now any way…" I said

"Well, I want you to have this," she said, taking the large silver Ankh from around her neck, "If you have any questions in the future, or just want to talk, just hold it in your hand and say, 'Death, I stand in my gallery and hold your sigil, come to me' or something like that, anyway, and I'll come"

"Thanks,"

"No problem" Death said, handing me the ankh and then fading from sight.

"Well. That was weird," My friend said.

"Anthropomorphic personifications of universal constants usually are, I suppose…" I said.

"Hey, anyone here?" a voice rang out from upstairs, familiar, the boyfriend of my friend.

"Why's here?" I asked, "just out of curiosity…"

"I told him to come after work, the three of us need to talk…"

"Alright, well, we better go upstairs, if we need to talk…"

"Um, you should probably get cleaned up, we don't want to alarm him, now do we?"

"Guess not, go on up, say your hellos, just be done by the time I'm out of the shower, okay?"

"Heh, yeah," my friend's expression changed, just for an instant, to one of quiet sadness, I don't think I was supposed to see, but she looked very sad… her straw blond haired head turned away, as her slight frame walked up the steps, I smiled, just happy to be with her… and figured that I should smile while I can, as it looked like it was going to be a somber talk…

End Chapter 1 

Well? What did you all think? If you guys are good, I'll post the omitted passage about 'Nny' killing the guy, I just didn't want to have to type it, it was getting way to long as a simple, minor scene.

The next chapter should be up soon. I'm only posting about half of what I've got written right now, It was actually all written together as one chapter, but I figured this would be the better way of posting it. Well, R&R!


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